“You mean the tall chap with the black beard?”
“Sure. I was standing there beside the door trying to follow you by the rustling you made,” McBride explained. “All at once there was the dickens of a flash in my eyes and the next second somebody grabbed me by the throat and half choked me. I squirmed around and kicked him on the shins a couple of times; then he must have choked me tighter, for I sort of went woozy and the next thing I knew I was inside the house and the door shut.”
“What happened then?” asked Cavvy interestedly.
“He dragged me upstairs and held me down in a chair, while the fat fellow tied my hands. They wanted to find out what I was doing there, of course. The tall guy didn’t talk much; just stood alongside and glowered. It was Fatty who asked the questions—about a thousand of ’em, I should say. He wanted to know who I was, and where I came from, and what I was doing there and a lot more. He was especially keen to know where the other fellows were, and I told him—” Micky gave a chuckle of satisfaction—“I told him we’d seen the wires and suspected a wireless, and the others had gone back to town to get the police.
“Say! It was worth a whole lot to see the way they took it. They were scared green—at least Fatty was. The other guy was madder than a hornet and worried some, too. I stuck to the yarn—of course it wasn’t true, Cavvy, but you’ve got to stretch things sometimes with skunks like that, haven’t you? And after all it was only what we would have done in a little while. Well, the two went off in a corner and gassed a lot. Finally Fatty began taking down the wireless and the big guy pussy-footed out of the room and down stairs.”
“Did you hear anything a little while after he’d gone?” asked Cavanaugh interestedly.
“I thought I did, but I wasn’t sure. I was worried stiff, because it seemed as if he might sneak out and nab you when you came down from the tree. So I listened as well as I could and after a while I heard what sounded like a thump. But I couldn’t be sure, for just then Fatty dropped a coil on the floor and it made the dickens of a racket. Was there a thump?”
“There was,” returned Cavvy grimly. “I was standing just outside the door when your friend opened it, and I beaned him with your stick.”
Briefly, and with many interruptions caused by their progress through the thickets toward the road, he went on to relate what followed and then returned to a consideration of the second man.
“How did he come at you, Bill?” he asked. “Was it from the house?”